You Lazy (Intellectual) African Scum!
Posted on January 18, 2012 | 503 Comments
So I got this in my email this morning…



They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished. In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.

“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”

Brawny, fully bald-headed, with intense, steely eyes, he was as cold as they come. When I first discovered I was going to spend my New Year’s Eve next to him on a non-stop JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to Boston I was angst-ridden. I associate marble-shaven Caucasians with iconoclastic skin-heads, most of who are racist.

“My name is Walter,” he extended his hand as soon as I settled in my seat.

I told him mine with a precautious smile.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Zambia.”

“Zambia!” he exclaimed, “Kaunda’s country.”

“Yes,” I said, “Now Sata’s.”

“But of course,” he responded. “You just elected King Cobra as your president.”

My face lit up at the mention of Sata’s moniker. Walter smiled, and in those cold eyes I saw an amenable fellow, one of those American highbrows who shuttle between Africa and the U.S.

“I spent three years in Zambia in the 1980s,” he continued. “I wined and dined with Luke Mwananshiku, Willa Mungomba, Dr. Siteke Mwale, and many other highly intelligent Zambians.” He lowered his voice. “I was part of the IMF group that came to rip you guys off.” He smirked. “Your government put me in a million dollar mansion overlooking a shanty called Kalingalinga. From my patio I saw it all—the rich and the poor, the ailing, the dead, and the healthy.”

“Are you still with the IMF?” I asked.

“I have since moved to yet another group with similar intentions. In the next few months my colleagues and I will be in Lusaka to hypnotize the cobra. I work for the broker that has acquired a chunk of your debt. Your government owes not the World Bank, but us millions of dollars. We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. “King Cobra is incorruptible. He is …”

He was laughing. “Says who? Give me an African president, just one, who has not fallen for the carrot and stick.”

Quett Masire’s name popped up.

“Oh, him, well, we never got to him because he turned down the IMF and the World Bank. It was perhaps the smartest thing for him to do.”

At midnight we were airborne. The captain wished us a happy 2012 and urged us to watch the fireworks across Los Angeles.

“Isn’t that beautiful,” Walter said looking down.

From my middle seat, I took a glance and nodded admirably.

“That’s white man’s country,” he said. “We came here on Mayflower and turned Indian land into a paradise and now the most powerful nation on earth. We discovered the bulb, and built this aircraft to fly us to pleasure resorts like Lake Zambia.”

I grinned. “There is no Lake Zambia.”

He curled his lips into a smug smile. “That’s what we call your country. You guys are as stagnant as the water in the lake. We come in with our large boats and fish your minerals and your wildlife and leave morsels—crumbs. That’s your staple food, crumbs. That corn-meal you eat, that’s crumbs, the small Tilapia fish you call Kapenta is crumbs. We the Bwanas (whites) take the cat fish. I am the Bwana and you are the Muntu. I get what I want and you get what you deserve, crumbs. That’s what lazy people get—Zambians, Africans, the entire Third World.”

The smile vanished from my face.

“I see you are getting pissed off,” Walter said and lowered his voice. “You are thinking this Bwana is a racist. That’s how most Zambians respond when I tell them the truth. They go ballistic. Okay. Let’s for a moment put our skin pigmentations, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the difference between you and me?”

“There’s no difference.”

“Absolutely none,” he exclaimed. “Scientists in the Human Genome Project have proved that. It took them thirteen years to determine the complete sequence of the three billion DNA subunits. After they

were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotide bases were exactly the same in you and me. We are the same people. All white, Asian, Latino, and black people on this aircraft are the same.”

I gladly nodded.

“And yet I feel superior,” he smiled fatalistically. “Every white person on this plane feels superior to a black person. The white guy who picks up garbage, the homeless white trash on drugs, feels superior to you no matter his status or education. I can pick up a nincompoop from the New York streets, clean him up, and take him to Lusaka and you all be crowding around him chanting muzungu, muzungu and yet he’s a riffraff. Tell me why my angry friend.”

For a moment I was wordless.

“Please don’t blame it on slavery like the African Americans do, or colonialism, or some psychological impact or some kind of stigmatization. And don’t give me the brainwash poppycock. Give me a better answer.”

I was thinking.

He continued. “Excuse what I am about to say. Please do not take offense.”

I felt a slap of blood rush to my head and prepared for the worst.

“You my friend flying with me and all your kind are lazy,” he said. “When you rest your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are damn lazy, each one of you. It is you, and not those poor starving people, who is the reason Africa is in such a deplorable state.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” I protested.

He was implacable. “Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?”

I held my breath.

“Do you know where I found your intellectuals? They were in bars quaffing. They were at the Lusaka Golf Club, Lusaka Central Club, Lusaka Playhouse, and Lusaka Flying Club. I saw with my own eyes a bunch of alcoholic graduates. Zambian intellectuals work from eight to five and spend the evening drinking. We don’t. We reserve the evening for brainstorming.”

He looked me in the eye.

“And you flying to Boston and all of you Zambians in the Diaspora are just as lazy and apathetic to your country. You don’t care about your country and yet your very own parents, brothers and sisters are in Mtendere, Chawama, and in villages, all of them living in squalor. Many have died or are dying of neglect by you. They are dying of AIDS because you cannot come up with your own cure. You are here calling yourselves graduates, researchers and scientists and are fast at articulating your credentials once asked—oh, I have a PhD in this and that—PhD my foot!”

I was deflated.

“Wake up you all!” he exclaimed, attracting the attention of nearby passengers. “You should be busy lifting ideas, formulae, recipes, and diagrams from American manufacturing factories and sending them to your own factories. All those research findings and dissertation papers you compile should be your country’s treasure. Why do you think the Asians are a force to reckon with? They stole our ideas and turned them into their own. Look at Japan, China, India, just look at them.”

He paused. “The Bwana has spoken,” he said and grinned. “As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.”

He tempered his voice. “Get over this white skin syndrome and begin to feel confident. Become innovative and make your own stuff for god’s sake.”

At 8 a.m. the plane touched down at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Walter reached for my hand.

“I know I was too strong, but I don’t give it a damn. I have been to Zambia and have seen too much poverty.” He pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled something. “Here, read this. It was written by a friend.”

He had written only the title: “Lords of Poverty.”

Thunderstruck, I had a sinking feeling. I watched Walter walk through the airport doors to a waiting car. He had left a huge dust devil twirling in my mind, stirring up sad memories of home. I could see Zambia’s literati—the cognoscente, intelligentsia, academics, highbrows, and scholars in the places he had mentioned guzzling and talking irrelevancies. I remembered some who have since passed—how they got the highest grades in mathematics and the sciences and attained the highest education on the planet. They had been to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only to leave us with not a single invention or discovery. I knew some by name and drunk with them at the Lusaka Playhouse and Central Sports.

Walter is right. It is true that since independence we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13 million civil servants dependent on a government pay cheque. We believe that development is generated 8-to-5 behind a desk wearing a tie with our degrees hanging on the wall. Such a working environment does not offer the opportunity for fellowship, the excitement of competition, and the spectacle of innovative rituals.

But the intelligentsia is not solely, or even mainly, to blame. The larger failure is due to political circumstances over which they have had little control. The past governments failed to create an environment of possibility that fosters camaraderie, rewards innovative ideas and encourages resilience. KK, Chiluba, Mwanawasa, and Banda embraced orthodox ideas and therefore failed to offer many opportunities for drawing outside the line.

I believe King Cobra’s reset has been cast in the same faculties as those of his predecessors. If today I told him that we can build our own car, he would throw me out.

“Naupena? Fuma apa.” (Are you mad? Get out of here)

Knowing well that King Cobra will not embody innovation at Walter’s level let’s begin to look for a technologically active-positive leader who can succeed him after a term or two. That way we can make our own stone crushers, water filters, water pumps, razor blades, and harvesters. Let’s dream big and make tractors, cars, and planes, or, like Walter said, forever remain inferior.

A fundamental transformation of our country from what is essentially non-innovative to a strategic superior African country requires a bold risk-taking educated leader with a triumphalist attitude and we have one in YOU. Don’t be highly strung and feel insulted by Walter. Take a moment and think about our country. Our journey from 1964 has been marked by tears. It has been an emotionally overwhelming experience. Each one of us has lost a loved one to poverty, hunger, and disease. The number of graves is catching up with the population. It’s time to change our political culture. It’s time for Zambian intellectuals to cultivate an active-positive progressive movement that will change our lives forever. Don’t be afraid or dispirited, rise to the challenge and salvage the remaining few of your beloved ones.

Field Ruwe is a US-based Zambian media practitioner and author. He is a PhD candidate with a B.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism, and an M.A. in History.

See what are we saying, 9 people have viewed this write-up so far, but non overcome their laziness to read it.
Africa! I wail for you!.

buy4me:

You Lazy (Intellectual) African Scum!
Posted on January 18, 2012 | 503 Comments
So I got this in my email this morning…



They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished. In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.

“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”

Brawny, fully bald-headed, with intense, steely eyes, he was as cold as they come. When I first discovered I was going to spend my New Year’s Eve next to him on a non-stop JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to Boston I was angst-ridden. I associate marble-shaven Caucasians with iconoclastic skin-heads, most of who are racist.

“My name is Walter,” he extended his hand as soon as I settled in my seat.

I told him mine with a precautious smile.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Zambia.”

“Zambia!” he exclaimed, “Kaunda’s country.”

“Yes,” I said, “Now Sata’s.”

“But of course,” he responded. “You just elected King Cobra as your president.”

My face lit up at the mention of Sata’s moniker. Walter smiled, and in those cold eyes I saw an amenable fellow, one of those American highbrows who shuttle between Africa and the U.S.

“I spent three years in Zambia in the 1980s,” he continued. “I wined and dined with Luke Mwananshiku, Willa Mungomba, Dr. Siteke Mwale, and many other highly intelligent Zambians.” He lowered his voice. “I was part of the IMF group that came to rip you guys off.” He smirked. “Your government put me in a million dollar mansion overlooking a shanty called Kalingalinga. From my patio I saw it all—the rich and the poor, the ailing, the dead, and the healthy.”

“Are you still with the IMF?” I asked.

“I have since moved to yet another group with similar intentions. In the next few months my colleagues and I will be in Lusaka to hypnotize the cobra. I work for the broker that has acquired a chunk of your debt. Your government owes not the World Bank, but us millions of dollars. We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. “King Cobra is incorruptible. He is …”

He was laughing. “Says who? Give me an African president, just one, who has not fallen for the carrot and stick.”

Quett Masire’s name popped up.

“Oh, him, well, we never got to him because he turned down the IMF and the World Bank. It was perhaps the smartest thing for him to do.”

At midnight we were airborne. The captain wished us a happy 2012 and urged us to watch the fireworks across Los Angeles.

“Isn’t that beautiful,” Walter said looking down.

From my middle seat, I took a glance and nodded admirably.

“That’s white man’s country,” he said. “We came here on Mayflower and turned Indian land into a paradise and now the most powerful nation on earth. We discovered the bulb, and built this aircraft to fly us to pleasure resorts like Lake Zambia.”

I grinned. “There is no Lake Zambia.”

He curled his lips into a smug smile. “That’s what we call your country. You guys are as stagnant as the water in the lake. We come in with our large boats and fish your minerals and your wildlife and leave morsels—crumbs. That’s your staple food, crumbs. That corn-meal you eat, that’s crumbs, the small Tilapia fish you call Kapenta is crumbs. We the Bwanas (whites) take the cat fish. I am the Bwana and you are the Muntu. I get what I want and you get what you deserve, crumbs. That’s what lazy people get—Zambians, Africans, the entire Third World.”

The smile vanished from my face.

“I see you are getting pissed off,” Walter said and lowered his voice. “You are thinking this Bwana is a racist. That’s how most Zambians respond when I tell them the truth. They go ballistic. Okay. Let’s for a moment put our skin pigmentations, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the difference between you and me?”

“There’s no difference.”

“Absolutely none,” he exclaimed. “Scientists in the Human Genome Project have proved that. It took them thirteen years to determine the complete sequence of the three billion DNA subunits. After they

were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotide bases were exactly the same in you and me. We are the same people. All white, Asian, Latino, and black people on this aircraft are the same.”

I gladly nodded.

“And yet I feel superior,” he smiled fatalistically. “Every white person on this plane feels superior to a black person. The white guy who picks up garbage, the homeless white trash on drugs, feels superior to you no matter his status or education. I can pick up a nincompoop from the New York streets, clean him up, and take him to Lusaka and you all be crowding around him chanting muzungu, muzungu and yet he’s a riffraff. Tell me why my angry friend.”

For a moment I was wordless.

“Please don’t blame it on slavery like the African Americans do, or colonialism, or some psychological impact or some kind of stigmatization. And don’t give me the brainwash poppycock. Give me a better answer.”

I was thinking.

He continued. “Excuse what I am about to say. Please do not take offense.”

I felt a slap of blood rush to my head and prepared for the worst.

“You my friend flying with me and all your kind are lazy,” he said. “When you rest your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are damn lazy, each one of you. It is you, and not those poor starving people, who is the reason Africa is in such a deplorable state.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” I protested.

He was implacable. “Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?”

I held my breath.

“Do you know where I found your intellectuals? They were in bars quaffing. They were at the Lusaka Golf Club, Lusaka Central Club, Lusaka Playhouse, and Lusaka Flying Club. I saw with my own eyes a bunch of alcoholic graduates. Zambian intellectuals work from eight to five and spend the evening drinking. We don’t. We reserve the evening for brainstorming.”

He looked me in the eye.

“And you flying to Boston and all of you Zambians in the Diaspora are just as lazy and apathetic to your country. You don’t care about your country and yet your very own parents, brothers and sisters are in Mtendere, Chawama, and in villages, all of them living in squalor. Many have died or are dying of neglect by you. They are dying of AIDS because you cannot come up with your own cure. You are here calling yourselves graduates, researchers and scientists and are fast at articulating your credentials once asked—oh, I have a PhD in this and that—PhD my foot!”

I was deflated.

“Wake up you all!” he exclaimed, attracting the attention of nearby passengers. “You should be busy lifting ideas, formulae, recipes, and diagrams from American manufacturing factories and sending them to your own factories. All those research findings and dissertation papers you compile should be your country’s treasure. Why do you think the Asians are a force to reckon with? They stole our ideas and turned them into their own. Look at Japan, China, India, just look at them.”

He paused. “The Bwana has spoken,” he said and grinned. “As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.”

He tempered his voice. “Get over this white skin syndrome and begin to feel confident. Become innovative and make your own stuff for god’s sake.”

At 8 a.m. the plane touched down at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Walter reached for my hand.

“I know I was too strong, but I don’t give it a damn. I have been to Zambia and have seen too much poverty.” He pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled something. “Here, read this. It was written by a friend.”

He had written only the title: “Lords of Poverty.”

Thunderstruck, I had a sinking feeling. I watched Walter walk through the airport doors to a waiting car. He had left a huge dust devil twirling in my mind, stirring up sad memories of home. I could see Zambia’s literati—the cognoscente, intelligentsia, academics, highbrows, and scholars in the places he had mentioned guzzling and talking irrelevancies. I remembered some who have since passed—how they got the highest grades in mathematics and the sciences and attained the highest education on the planet. They had been to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only to leave us with not a single invention or discovery. I knew some by name and drunk with them at the Lusaka Playhouse and Central Sports.

Walter is right. It is true that since independence we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13 million civil servants dependent on a government pay cheque. We believe that development is generated 8-to-5 behind a desk wearing a tie with our degrees hanging on the wall. Such a working environment does not offer the opportunity for fellowship, the excitement of competition, and the spectacle of innovative rituals.

But the intelligentsia is not solely, or even mainly, to blame. The larger failure is due to political circumstances over which they have had little control. The past governments failed to create an environment of possibility that fosters camaraderie, rewards innovative ideas and encourages resilience. KK, Chiluba, Mwanawasa, and Banda embraced orthodox ideas and therefore failed to offer many opportunities for drawing outside the line.

I believe King Cobra’s reset has been cast in the same faculties as those of his predecessors. If today I told him that we can build our own car, he would throw me out.

“Naupena? Fuma apa.” (Are you mad? Get out of here)

Knowing well that King Cobra will not embody innovation at Walter’s level let’s begin to look for a technologically active-positive leader who can succeed him after a term or two. That way we can make our own stone crushers, water filters, water pumps, razor blades, and harvesters. Let’s dream big and make tractors, cars, and planes, or, like Walter said, forever remain inferior.

A fundamental transformation of our country from what is essentially non-innovative to a strategic superior African country requires a bold risk-taking educated leader with a triumphalist attitude and we have one in YOU. Don’t be highly strung and feel insulted by Walter. Take a moment and think about our country. Our journey from 1964 has been marked by tears. It has been an emotionally overwhelming experience. Each one of us has lost a loved one to poverty, hunger, and disease. The number of graves is catching up with the population. It’s time to change our political culture. It’s time for Zambian intellectuals to cultivate an active-positive progressive movement that will change our lives forever. Don’t be afraid or dispirited, rise to the challenge and salvage the remaining few of your beloved ones.

Field Ruwe is a US-based Zambian media practitioner and author. He is a PhD candidate with a B.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism, and an M.A. in History.

I can reiterate the above post is a perfect food for thought. The load of laziness aptly referenced in this post was inherently afflicted on Africans through the machination known as colonialism. Biafra tried to break the yoke of the referenced pathetic load of laziness in this write-up but certain European powers encouraged the sluggishly slothful and languorous group of Nigerians to resist it. Biafra would have been the trailblazer Africa lacked.

When some African leaders talk about building schools, as Gov. Okorocha would orchestrate in Imo State, I had always tempted to ask why should Imo State need additional schools when existing ones can not produce employable and productive candidates. It will be a stretch of the fact to write about invention and Nigerian schools in the same sentence.

What are we going to do about this?

[size=18pt]Reverse Engineering is the key.[/size]

hercules07:

What are we going to do about this?

Same thing we do all the time. NOTHING!

hercules07:

What are we going to do about this?

First thing, make money! lots of it. And then invest on quality education at all levels.

This is really an eye opener, 50 yrs and counting after independence and no single invention to show for it, food for thought indeed.

Reverse Engineering is what made China what it is today

Reverse Engineering is what made Japan what it is today

Reverse Engineering is what made Taiwan what it is today

Reverse Engineering is what made India what it is today

Reverse Engineering is what made Russia what it is today

Reverse Engineering is what made South Korea what it is today

Reverse Engineering is what made Pakistan have the Nuclear Bomb today

Reverse Engineering is what made Iran seek for the Nuclear Bomb today


When there is a will, there is always a way, Africans have never had a will, we are consumers, yes our women want to carry Louis Vutton Bags, our men want to drive the latest Range Rover without knowing what is in the bonnet, how can we progress when we are contended with the Consumerism culture passed down by the white man. The African today is not any different from the Africans of yesteryears who would ransack 100’s of villages in search of slaves for the white man just because they would be rewarded with a bottle of Gin or a Mirror.


Reverse Engineering by the way is Copy-Copy Technology in case some of you are wondering what the hell is RE.

Going by the number of people that actually responded to this post, I can write that AFRICA is DOOMED!!!

We should be brainstorming, forming alliances and come-together to uplift our people.

End of the day, the dregs of this world is BLACK MAN because he did nothing.

good article nigeria is a good example,

staaari:

Going by the number of people that actually responded to this post, I can write that AFRICA is DOOMED!!!

We should be brainstorming, forming alliances and come-together to uplift our people.

End of the day, the dregs of this world is BLACK MAN because he did nothing.

You are right. We should start THINKING .

[size=13pt]You can't Reverse Engineer anything when you are spending more time;

1. Watching  EPL, La Liga etc all day.
2. When you in churches receiving slaps, Night Vigil, Tithing  and cursing real and imagined enemies.
3. When you watching Big Brother Africa, Nollywood, Multina Dance hall etc.

Many people without SSCE, Degrees,Msc's, Phd's etc are trying the best they can in this hostile country called Nigeria, example being our very own Seun Osewa of Nairaland.

btw, Reverse Engineering is ridiculed as Aba Made.

I know the stress I'm going true right now just to set up a Manufacturing SME, from sourcing Funds, Generator/Diesel etc. There is so much you can brainstorm before you join league of Briefcase Companies looking for Government Contract
[/size]

Pathetic!! I sometimes wonder if the black race is cursed.

fntekim:

Pathetic!! I sometimes wonder if the black race is cursed.

Their is no such thing as curse, your future is in your hands. Its just that some peeps have to work harder than others to achieve the level of success.

btw, Reverse Engineering is ridiculed as Aba Made.

We never carry Aba Made to the next level, Aba made is still where it was in 1982, meanwhile India that gave us Keke Nepap has moved into producing cars.

Dede1:


I can reiterate the above post is a perfect food for thought. The load of laziness aptly referenced in this post was inherently afflicted on Africans through the machination known as colonialism. Biafra tried to break the yoke of the referenced pathetic load of laziness in this write-up but certain European powers encouraged the sluggishly slothful and languorous group of Nigerians to resist it. Biafra would have been the trailblazer Africa lacked.
When some African leaders talk about building schools, as Gov. Okorocha would orchestrate in Imo State, I had always tempted to ask why should Imo State need additional schools when existing ones can not produce employable and productive candidates. It will be a stretch of the fact to write about invention and Nigerian schools in the same sentence.

When would you stop?!

Dont you ever get tired of this Biafran bullfeaces?!

Dede1:


I can reiterate the above post is a perfect food for thought. The load of laziness aptly referenced in this post was inherently afflicted on Africans through the machination known as colonialism. Biafra tried to break the yoke of the referenced pathetic load of laziness in this write-up but certain European powers encouraged the sluggishly slothful and languorous group of Nigerians to resist it. Biafra would have been the trailblazer Africa lacked.

When some African leaders talk about building schools, as Gov. Okorocha would orchestrate in Imo State, I had always tempted to ask why should Imo State need additional schools when existing ones can not produce employable and productive candidates. It will be a stretch of the fact to write about invention and Nigerian schools in the same sentence. 

The highlighted is nothing but excuse from a failed generation who have decided to brainwash the generation they offended.
The content of the op's article is very true for all Africans. It is funny how the most 'African' Africans r trying to make their counterparts they've impeded over the years look more 'African'.

It's all in your head.
Luckily Obama didn't have the same defeatist attitude.

I will give credit to the white man. They have a can do attitude and if you want to do anything and just go for it without thinking much about consequences, the sky is your limit.

I was going to post this topic next, I guess the OP beat me to it. I was hesitant to post it for certain reasons (when it was forwarded to me a few days ago) :

1. The White Man, even though right, was blatantly racist and unbelievably condescending.

2. Its bad enough that the African,through years of oppression, has been groomed to have an inferiority complex to the white man and I didn't want to further compound it by posting this article (there are young and impressionable minds on here, I believe)

Overall though, a very thoughtful and insightful topic. If not for nothing, at least it lets you see how the white-man views the likes of IBB, GEJ --- and BEAF!

mrmayor:

[size=13pt]You can't Reverse Engineer anything when you are spending more time;

1. Watching  EPL, La Liga etc all day.
2. When you in churches receiving slaps, Night Vigil, Tithing  and cursing real and imagined enemies.
3. When you watching Big Brother Africa, Nollywood, Multina Dance hall etc.

Many people without SSCE, Degrees,Msc's, Phd's etc are trying the best they can in this hostile country called Nigeria, example being our very own Seun Osewa of Nairaland.

btw, Reverse Engineering is ridiculed as Aba Made.

I know the stress I'm going true right now just to set up a Manufacturing SME, from sourcing Funds, Generator/Diesel etc. There is so much you can brainstorm before you join league of Briefcase Companies looking for Government Contract
[/size]

u were just haggling 4rm one thing 2 d other without any footing. . .what/who exactly r u blaming 4 this?nollywood,churches,epl or lack of government support?what exactly r u saying?

u were just haggling 4rm one thing 2 d other without any footing. . .what/who exactly r u blaming 4 this[b]?nollywood[/b],churches,epl or lack of government support?what exactly r u saying?

In fact Nollywood and Naija music has done us more good by not allowing the current generation rely on the 2 Cent and the Tom Cruise of this world for entertainment. Nollywood and Najia Vibes are really trail blazers if anything.

So parodies are better than the real stuff cos all those music we are being assaulted with are all pseudo-american noise.

We import almost everything: Our music is becoming more of borrowed stuff.
People virtually slobber over English footie
It will be difficult for us to change things if we have an increasing thirst for things produced by others.
As long as you see whatever you do in Nigeria as doing somebody
favours rather than a responsibility/ commitment,you will always complain.

hmmm

The made in Japan, made in China were also once considered inferior goods but they persisted and upgraded

Now Japanese automobolies are the best inthe world

you cannot break technological barrier without first securing a progressive space.
how many african/black countries are progressive spaces? i count about 2 out of 54 african countries -ghana and south africa. ghana is really the only black progressive african space. biafra would have been the other one

progressive spaces go at inventions courageously without caring whether it would be ridiculed or not
that is how you have many made in ghana products, and few made in nigeria products.
igboland is a progressive space, but it is being stifled and chocked by the nigerian national non-progressive culture.

i thank the federal government for giving the contract for the manufacture of 6000 buses to various nigerian auto companies. it is a start, but will achieve much. progressive spaces can be created through adoption of progressive cultures, instead of stifling them.

progressive cultures create progressive spaces
progressive spaces create technological innovations
it has nothing to do with formal education of any kind, both are completely separate
that is why you find a "red neck" (illiterate) white boy designing and launching rockets for fun.
i came across a white boy of about 13 years playing with his toy remote controlled car in my neighborhood, and decided to engage him in a conversation about the toy car. the car is the type that is a near replica of a real car, complete with engine using NOS for fuel. he was able to break down the design and technical specification down to bolks and nuts
he was not just riding the toy around, but had deep understanding and appreciation of the technology behind his toy.
how many african kids can do that?
he could not have grown to know that much without a progressive culture, where a father would agree to shell out $400 for a toy car knowing that in doing so his child is growing in this wonderful progressive culture.

how many african parents think like that?

If I need advise on anything I wouldn't come to you, re@lchange. How can Africa have any breakthrough in technology without formal education?

@poster
First it is intellectually lazy for you to allow a drunken skinhead own you just like he did right there. You couldn't give him one for the boys. That dude just used you to urge himself on. You see to him that's the way he sees it. You have to know that you know better on this case.

Arosa:

If I need advise on anything I wouldn't come to you, re@lchange. How can Africa have any breakthrough in technology without formal education?

anyone can learn and acquire any technological skills without going to any school
some of the best programmers and hackers never went to any school

it is all about the culture!
you need to watch more of discovery channel
i see such guys designing cars, bikes, basically any machine, just for fun, for tech fun
how many africans derive joy and fun from pure tech stuff?

that is my point

ebere1712:

@poster
First it is intellectually lazy for you to allow a drunken skinhead own you just like he did right there. You couldn't give him one for the boys. That dude just used you to urge himself on. You see to him that's the way he sees it. You have to know that you know better on this case.

why are africans always offended when confronted with the truth?
now they go reverse racist without even proving anything wrong

show me a tunnel in africa designed and built by an african 

Nice write up.

Corruption is the problem though. Not really lazy Africans.